Last week, one of the most read tags on almost every news site I dragged up, even the seriously economic ones, was the story about scientists who linked up rats, brain to brain, and made them telepathically communicate to each other, even over the internet. Of course, I read all I could find about it and wasted a good part of my working day mulling over possible scenarios where we could link up Sonia Gandhi with Narendra Modi, or David Cameron and Angela Merkel, instead of boning up on sequestrations and triple dip recessions. I expect , like me, a lot of people were taking a welcome break from yet another quarter of global economic turmoil as Q1 comes to an end.

Dip Spectre

Well, here’s the good news and the bad news. The bad news first, the Americans couldn’t agree to any kind of compromise on spending cuts, and that ghastly word sequestration has come into force. More bad news, after being stripped of its triple A credit rating , the UK’s manufacturing sector actually shrank in February — raising the spectre of a triple dip recession, and more monetary easing from the Bank of England. Except for Germany, the numbers from the rest of the Eurozone are appalling , with unemployment rising to unprecedented levels. The Chinese are expected to release a lot of macroeconomic data next week — hopefully good — and Japan has an “aggressive” chief at the central bank who is expected to open the floodgates of monetary easing.

Italian Fun

And this is the funny one. I should say that the Italian connection is bad news and raises the spectre of EU disintegration again, but in my opinion, it is not. I love the Italians. They went and voted for Beppe Grillo, a comedian turned politician as the kingmaker. The irrepressible Berlusconi managed to swing in a tidy showing. Mario Monti, beloved of Brussels and Angela Merkel, barely managed to save his deposit. Like Greece, UK, US and India, Italy will now have a government that is deadlocked in both Houses, and unless the three main parties can cobble together a working coalition, they will have to have elections soon. Is this worrying anyone? Yes, officials in Brussels are in panic mode, a German minister got into diplomatic hot soup for saying the Italians voted for a couple of clowns, and I suspect the corridors in Brussels are chocker with worried rats who can’t telepath their way out of this maze. The markets are only worried about whether a cobbled-together government will apply to the ECB’s “whatever it takes” backstop; given that two of the three winners are anti-austerity and spending cuts. Their solution would be to hammer Italian bonds until the ECB and whatever government comes to power is forced to cave in, if necessary. Why I think it’s good news, is because, like someone pointed out, like the French and Greeks, the Italians have voted against Germany’s stranglehold on EU policies. When every politician loses his job for promoting Ms Merkel’s strict fiscal discipline hausfrau policies, someone might come to their senses — maybe.